


(lead me not) into temptation

by jdphoenix



Series: lead me not [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Season/Series 01, Supernatural Elements, sort of? more like angels & demons adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5427938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is that why you saved me from the virus, so I’d owe you a life debt?”</p><p>“Nah.” He crosses his legs at the ankle, letting himself lounge a little. No point in keeping up the kicked puppy act, not between them. “That was just for fun.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr for wssummer's magic theme. (And, as such, is NOT one of my 25 days fics, in case you were wondering.)

The barrier drops and Grant isn’t all that surprised to find Simmons on the other side. His arm is one big welt of pain and the drugs they’ve got him on do little to help - either they think his refusal to take meds back on the Bus was genuine or they just don’t like him enough to give him the good stuff, but it takes the edge off at least. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to smile when he sees her.

“I’m not picking at it,” he says. “Promise.” He doesn’t bother getting up. No point wasting energy, though passing out might win him some brownie points.

“Stop,” she says. He’s never heard her sound so angry and he has to force his smile to fall instead of sharpen. “Just stop. The cameras are off. No one’s watching or listening.”

“And what do you think we’re gonna say that we wouldn’t want the others to hear?” Maybe he lets just a little too much innocence creep into his tone. He’s pretty sure she knows by now - why else would she be down here? - so what does it matter?

“That you never worked solely for SHIELD  _or_  HYDRA.”

He lets that sit for half a tick. “Who do you think I work for, Simmons?”

Her face twists in disgust. “You’re a- a-” She can’t even say it, so he helps her out.

“A servant of Chaos? A child of the Dark? A minion of Evil? One of those?”

She actually turns away, she’s so horrified by the confession. He laughs. Seeing her pace the space outside his cell is better than watching Coulson do the same. Coulson’s just a piece in the greater game. Simmons? She’s a  _player_.

She flops down in the chair and fixes him with a look that’d probably send lesser beings scurrying for their dark corners. Grant’s not exactly cowed. It’d take a hell of a lot more than  _Simmons_  to intimidate him, even if he hadn’t spent the last year putting one over on her. And boy, was  _that_  fun. Here she is, meant to be fighting the good fight to match his and she never had any idea what he really was, did she? 

He thought she’d at least realize there was more to him than met the eye after Coulson’s capture, when he insisted _she_ tend to his gunshot wound. Why would he pick an inexperienced pseudo-medic over the qualified team coming in unless he knew her healing touch would do more than a few stitches ever could? Even in Cuba - he was _sure_ she’d have figured him out by then, but there was none of that righteous anger her kind’s so famous for. He almost laughed at her expression when he dropped the med pod out of the plane. She was  _disappointed_  in him. 

But even she couldn’t be blind to what happened yesterday. He was bleeding out, fading fast from the cut on his arm, but then she came along and that ol’ healing magic just poured out of her. Without, he’s sure, her permission.

“Is that why you did it?” she asks, her jaw tight around the words. “Is that why you saved me from the virus, so I’d owe you a life debt?”

“Nah.” He crosses his legs at the ankle, letting himself lounge a little. No point in keeping up the kicked puppy act, not between them. “That was just for fun.”

“You saved a Shieldmaiden for  _fun_?” She is adorably incredulous.

“Yeah.” He gestures between them. “This right here? Fun.” That gets her scowling again. “The life debt was just a bonus.”

She stands with careful poise. “Well, I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, because I-”

“Oh, I will.” The present tense has her stopping in surprise, so he goes on to explain. “See, I wouldn’t’ve died from that little cut - we’re made of stronger stuff than that - but I am still trapped in this cell, every day in danger of being killed for my crimes.”

“Justice.”

“Vengeance,” he counters quickly. “And much as your side might claim the  _Avengers_  as your own, we both know vengeance doesn’t belong to any of them. Or us, even.” That rattles her. More than a little, he thinks. The Avengers are, arguably, good guys, but they have the promise of slipping built right into the name. It’s only a matter of time before Earth’s Mightiest move from her side of the board to his.

She wraps her arms around herself. He likes to think she’s trying to hide her shaking.

“What’s your point, Ward?”

He hisses in a breath. “I’ve still got lots of chaos to sow before I shuck off this mortal coil and I can’t do it - well, not  _much_  of it - while I’m stuck down here.”

“I’m not letting you out.” No, he didn’t think she would. A life debt is one thing, but unleashing him on the world? The uneven balance between them doesn’t justify anything that drastic. Still, there are other benefits he can gain from this.

“But you’ll make sure I don’t die down here - or anywhere while I remain in SHIELD’s custody,” he adds quickly. The stereotype that his kind are the only ones who exploit loopholes is precisely why his kind are so often on the defensive.

“Fine,” she sighs. He’s almost disappointed with her lack of parting barb, so he’s more than a little relieved when she stops herself from leaving. “But don’t push it. Whatever plan you’re working, don’t think I’m going to drag you all the way back from Death’s door.”

He lifts his uninjured arm, palm out, in a show of defense. “No serious suicide attempts. Got it.” 

She doesn’t look happy about it, but she’s at least satisfied with the deal they’ve struck. 

He lets her make it to the stairs before calling out, “And, Simmons? Thanks for the healing.” Her hand twitches, but she leaves without another word.

Yep. Definitely fun.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jemma's promise to kill Ward is more than an idle threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a semi-Christmas gift for SafelyCapricious. It's not what she asked for (which I do have plans to write one day) but what she asked for inspired me to finish this.

Ward.

Mike Peterson staring at Ward.

Coulson standing beside Ward, working _with_ him.

Jemma can’t stop seeing it. The image simply _will not_ leave her head.

When they lost the signal from Peterson’s eye again - to Fitz, if Jemma had to guess from the technique of the coding - May dismissed her, said something about having to contact the rest of the Council. A pained laugh wells up inside Jemma and she leans momentarily on the cool brick wall for support. The rest of the Council. Because May is a member. And so is Weaver - and possibly Bobbi and Mack, but Jemma hasn’t yet cared enough to find out. She knows they lied to them, betrayed them, invited invaders into their base rather than simply ask for the information they sought.

All because they don’t trust Coulson. Coulson, who has been skulking around behind their backs, visiting May’s ex-husband and working out of a secret base he’s never told the rest of them about. Fitz and Mike and Hunter are all with him now, working with him - and Ward.

“Simmons?” Mack. She’s in his sickroom. It’s a level down from Coulson’s office and she has no idea at all how she made it this far or where she’s been in the interim. “You okay?”

No. No, she is _not_ okay because everyone she loves has betrayed her. Everyone with the exception of Skye, who Jemma can no longer firmly describe as human. Whatever she’s become, there’s nothing in Jemma’s experience as a SHIELD scientist _or_ as a Shieldmaiden to prepare her to deal with it. All she knows is that Ward wanted it to happen. He was quite eager for Skye to go down into that city and his reasons cannot possibly be good.

“Simmons?” Mack asks again. He looks as though he’s preparing to stand even though he really shouldn’t, not yet, but she can’t find it in her to stop him, even for his own good.

Everything - all the lies and deceit and Evil - is bearing down on her, crushing her. She put her faith in this organization and these people, thought that with their help she could do real Good in the world. And now…

And now…

The darkness that’s been pressing on her heart for months now finally closes in and she falls into a stagnant blackness. She doesn’t hear Mack yelling her name or feel his broad hands on her shoulders, trying to shake her back to consciousness. She’s buried too deep.

 

 

\----------

 

 

Grant isn’t happy about returning to the Playground. (And _that’s_ it’s name? Seriously? Coulson is _such_ a dad.) He’s got a plan, a good one that he’s been building to since before he even left this place and he wants to see it to the end, but there are two very real dangers waiting for him here.

Coulson’s got this psycho plan to erase Grant’s memory once he gets what he wants from him. There’s a decent chance it won’t work at all; Grant’s not a demon, they’re a different class of being, but he’s still more than human. He figures even if it does work (which he figures is at least a partial possibility since it’ll likely be Simmons doing the erasing) it won’t be able to erase what’s in his bones - he’ll still be a Sower of Evil; he just won’t remember how _good_ he is at it.

Simmons is his other problem. Last time he was here, she swore to kill him if she ever laid eyes on him again. It wasn’t some idle threat, it was an oath carved into the fabric of her being and his. Hell, it’s been months and walking down that hallway on his way back to lockup, he can still feel the power of it lingering where she stood.

Or maybe that’s just Destiny. It’s been tugging at his senses all night, ever since the fight at that old, derelict office building. Somehow - and he doesn’t know _how_ \- Simmons saw him. Her oath has been activated and now Destiny’s pulling at them, trying to force them together so this can end. And since Destiny is so rarely on Grant’s side, he’s really not looking forward to how that’ll go down.

He’s just considering how best to avoid Simmons with his entourage of guards keeping him penned on every side, when he spots Fitz. He lost sight of him in all the hubbub of landing the Quinjet in hostile territory. Not that it’s Grant’s problem, but he’s safe, talking to Weaver who, turns out, survived the clusterfuck at the Academy. It’s kind of disappointing; Grant always found her a little condescending, which he doesn’t appreciate from people who aren’t even aware enough to see the cosmic playing board they’re standing on.

All of a sudden Fitz’s body language changes. He’s not just unhappy to be talking to a former friend who betrayed him (and, for the record, Grant is _loving_ not being the only one on this side of that line anymore), he’s _furious_. His face goes red and in a few seconds he’s yelling so loud a couple of Grant’s guards move off to restrain him.

“Guess she told him,” one of the few who remain mutters.

“Told him what?” Grant asks, playing up his confusion to hide how much he’s enjoying the show. The guards exchange looks, unsure whether they should answer the former HYDRA agent’s questions. “Come on, if it’s big enough to get that reaction, I’m gonna find out sooner or later.”

The guard who spoke rolls his eyes. “The other scientist on Coulson’s team? Simmons? She’s been in a coma for the last eight hours.”

Grant holds himself perfectly still, he can’t risk even a hint of what he’s feeling break through to the surface. When he’s sure he can manage it steadily, he asks, “She get hurt in the invasion?” He knows she didn’t. Fitz never would’ve left if she had been and someone would’ve mentioned it, even if it wasn’t to him.

The other guards return. May and some hulking new guy are with Fitz, trying to help him keep cool. Now that Grant’s covered on all sides again, they get moving.

“Well?” he prods.

“Nah,” the guard says. “She was fine. Just passed out all of a sudden last night and no one can figure out why.”

It’s a real struggle to keep the smile off his face and it only grows more difficult when they lead him right past Simmons’ room. To the common observer, she looks like she’s sleeping; the only sign of anything wrong is the stillness of her chest and the heart monitor that isn’t even beeping. But Grant’s not common. Her aura, usually so bright and shining, is faded and weak around the edges. It’s like crepe paper that’s fallen in water, barely holding onto its consistency and ready to break apart if hit by the smallest ripple.

“Wait,” he says and stops where he stands.

The guard behind him gives him a faint nudge. “Keep moving.”

“I wanna see her.” He tries to sound at least a little worried about her.

“Yeah, not happening,” the guard laughs. “Let’s go.” He gives Grant another shove, harder this time.

Grant lets it propel him forward and uses the momentum to turn. The anger over being pushed (like he couldn’t break this guy in half even while cuffed), he uses to cover up how gleeful he is. Maybe Destiny is actually on his side this time - and wouldn’t _that_ be a shake-up?

“She was my friend.”

“Yeah. _Was_.”

“Oh,” the guard from earlier cuts in, “just let him take a look. It’s not like he can hurt her worse.”

He could. He _definitely_ could. Weak as she is, he could kill her without much trouble, rob the world of a Shieldmaiden in her prime. Tempting as that is, it’d almost definitely mean his death too and he’s got a lot more Chaos to inflict. Besides, messing with Simmons has always been fun and, though he hates to admit it, she was always his favorite on the Bus. Probably had something to do with her having the right perspective, but she was the least annoying of them all in the early days and that never quite went away. He’d miss playing with her.

“What’s _he_ doing here?” The woman sitting vigil at Simmons’ bedside is more than a surprise.

“Agent 33?” he asks. He thought she died in San Juan.

“Kara,” she corrects coldly and then glares at his guards. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“He just wants to see her.”

“He’s _HYDRA_.”

“Was,” Grant says absently and steps up to Simmons’ bedside. Her aura doesn’t recoil from him the way it should, it _reaches_ for him, completely ignoring his base nature in its desperation. It’s not really him it wants, it’s what’s inside him, the reserves he’s kept of the power she poured into him on more than one occasion. It wants that back to heal itself.

Grant’s got something else in mind - something _more_.

It was always gonna take something big to cancel out her oath. There might be a loophole somewhere in it that he can exploit, but Christian - the bastard - got the all the legal brains in the family, so Grant’s left with brute force to wipe the damn thing out. He was thinking saving her life in the midst of a dramatic battle - hopefully the one Coulson’s got him here for - but, state she’s in, this’ll do just fine.

She’s paler than she looked from outside and not as peaceful. Her brow is slightly furrowed, like she’s having a mildly bad dream. Weak as she is though, it’d have to be a _really_ bad one to have any effect at all.

“All right, you’ve seen her,” the cranky guard says.

Grant ignores him. There are a lot of ways he could do this. A simple transfer of power could be as easy as lowering his defenses, letting her aura siphon what it wants off of his, or he could lay hands on her, heal her that way. But those lack a certain flair and he _is_ doing this for the fun, after all.

His cuffs clank against the bar along the side of the bed when he grips it to bend over her.

“What are you-” Kara starts.

He presses a gentle kiss to Simmons’ lips. He expects disorientation from power rushing out of him, but not from the resulting backlash. The force of it is enough to have him gripping the rail twice as tight and leaning into the hands trying to force him away from her. A warm pulse goes down his spine and travels outward like a bolt of electricity charging through his extremities.

If someone had told him healing a Shieldmaiden was so heady, he would’ve tried it years ago.

Simmons’ eyes pop open almost the second he pulls away and the heart monitor is already beeping away.

He quickly prods his awareness for Destiny’s tug, but it’s gone. Her oath has been nullified.

He gives her a cheeky grin while in the background Kara and the guards call for a medic. “Morning, princess.”

 

 

\----------

 

 

Jemma spends hours being poked and prodded Weaver’s medics. Not a one of them can figure why she’s woken up or what caused her coma in the first place. They’re trying not to mention in front of her just how odd the coma was but she can read a chart. She knows her heartbeat was down to only once or twice per minute and her breathing was near negligible.

She doesn’t know for certain, but from the symptoms and the spiral of bad thoughts that preceded it, she may well have been suffering from a broken heart. It’s certainly sore. For the umpteenth time she stops herself from rubbing the spot between her breasts. Doing so will only bring on more tests with equally inconclusive results.

They ask her questions, which she answers as truthfully and vaguely as she’s able, resulting in increasingly absurd theories. She’s just about to demand to be allowed to leave in the face of the last one - something about whether she's eaten any fish in the last forty-eight hours - when Coulson finally enters and something inside her loosens in relief. Fitz, before he was dragged away to be debriefed on the Ward mission, told her he was back, but it’s good to see for herself.

Her anger with him is so distant now that she can barely remember it and she returns his hug with a much tighter one.

“Any idea what happened?” he asks.

“We were thinking maybe it was related to the Chitauri virus,” one of the medics offers.

Coulson’s mouth twists down on one side. “Jemma?”

She ducks her head to hide her grin. Just a few days ago she was insulted when Weaver asked her for her medical opinion in a weak ploy to get back on her good side. Coulson asking her opinion and ignoring those of men with years more medical experience than she has is far more endearing for some reason.

The looking away is also an opportunity to examine herself more carefully. She’s had ample time, but another look won’t hurt. Her heart, the center of whatever’s happened to her, is whole, but she can feel the seams of newly fused fissures. It feels somehow more real and present in her chest than it’s been in nearly a year, yet at the same time it feels distant, like it’s separated from her somehow. And it’s _warm_ , so much so that she might be giddy with it if she weren’t so annoyed at being stuck in this bed. Then there’s her aura. It’s difficult to examine one’s own, so she’d rather not theorize too wildly, but what she thinks has happened definitely requires investigation.

“I’d like to see him,” she says.

Coulson’s smile has been growing while he’s waited patiently for her answer and it thins out now. “Skye’s back - says it’s completely unfair that Fitz got to sneak past the guards and she can’t - and she’s already talked to him. If he knows what happened to you or why his- why he was able to wake you up, he’s not saying.”

Of course he’s not, which is why Jemma needs to be the one to talk to him, but that’s not what interests her most in that statement.

“Guards?” she asks. She hasn’t seen any through the quarantine room’s floor-to-ceiling windows, but then she hasn’t seen anyone at all that wasn’t her doctors or Fitz since Kara dragged Ward out of here.

Coulson frowns. “They’re outside, out of sight. Weaver didn’t want to frighten you.”

Jemma rolls her eyes. She’s not frightened.

Well, perhaps a bit.

But not about anything a couple of guards and a quarantine seal can protect her from.

She steels herself and asks again. “I’d like to try talking to him myself.”

Coulson’s worried, understandably so. He’s looking at her the same way he did when he sealed her in the Bus’s lab what feels like a lifetime ago, as though he were somehow responsible for what’s become of her. His hand lifts as though to touch her hair but he checks the motion before it gets that far. “All right. We’ll give you some privacy to change. I’ll be right outside.”

The medics try to argue with him, but as none of them have any idea what’s wrong with her, they can’t justify holding her here.

When they’re gone, she climbs gingerly from the bed. She has a few smarts from her initial fall and her muscles take a moment to adjust to finally standing again, but it’s her soul that really needs time. She feels like she’s fitting into newly washed jeans. Everything _fits_ , but it takes a moment to adjust.

Now she does touch her chest, feel the familiar beating of her heart. It’s strong and sure, perfectly healthy, but there’s more to it than there was before. A fullness and a longing both. She’s afraid that the only way to fulfill the latter is sitting at the bottom of Vault D.

 

 

\----------

 

 

They must really be worried about Simmons because it takes hours before she finally comes to visit. Grant knows it’s her the second the door opens and throws his legs over the side of the bed, abandoning his lounge.

“Hey, princess,” he says jovially. (He is not letting go of that nickname anytime soon.)

She must be pissed because she makes it halfway across the floor before remembering there’s a barrier between them. Her jaw tightens and she just stares for a few seconds.

He tips his head, trying to get a better view of the site of a blood draw at her elbow. “That looks like it hurt. I guess you didn’t tell them?”

The breath whooshes out of her. “Do you have any idea what you did?” she asks.

He slaps his knees and pushes to his feet. “Oh, nothing much,” he says with false humility, “just fed some of your own power back into you - I never needed as much as you gave me back when we were on the team together - along with some of my own and, you know, _saved your life_. Now, are you really gonna try to kill the guy who did that? Because I’m thinking n-”

She barks out a laugh, completely ruining his speech. “You think this has anything to do with my promise to kill you?”

He spreads his hands wide. “Well - yeah. That was kind of the point of me saving you.”

She nods slowly and starts pacing. “Right. Of course. And doing it that way, that was just to stop me too?”

He shrugs. “More for the look on your face - and everyone else’s faces. Come on, you can’t say it wasn’t a good kiss.” Chaste as it was, it was a _very_ good kiss. His toes are still buzzing.

“You woke me up from a _Sleeping Death_ with a _kiss_. Do you even know what that _means_?”

“That I’m an asshole who enjoys making a dark twist on classically light imagery? Yeah, this isn’t news.” He gestures between them. “You know what I am. You know how this game works.”

Maybe it was a little much, the kiss thing, but how could he help himself? She was lying there like Snow freaking White and he was the one come to save her - not white knight Fitz or prince charming Trip, _him_ , her resident agent of Darkness. It was too good to pass up.

She drags her hands over her hair. “You- you didn’t just _twist_ it. You _saved_ me, that’s-” She looks like she wants to throw something at him but she’s paced too far from the chair. “You did something _good_.”

“And unlike you, I’m allowed to cross that line. It only makes the bad things I do that much worse. So I’m okay.”

She shakes her head so fiercely some of her hair flies free of its tie to frame her face in attractive little wisps. “No. Not ordinary good, not helping a little old lady across the street good. Capital G  _Good_. And you used Light’s means of accomplishing it.”

An uncomfortable something or other crawls under Grant’s skin. He’s still okay. He’s allowed, just like he said. And he did it to save his own skin! That’s gotta make a difference, right? Make it Evil - or at least Bad.

All the emotion she’s built up fades away, leaving her looking so frail he’d think she was dying all over again if he couldn’t see her aura’s as healthy as ever. Healthi _er_ even. It shimmers like it always has (damn Shieldmaidens) and it doesn’t fade out at the edges the way it was doing earlier, too weak to sustain itself far from the shelter of her body. In fact, it reaches out far, past the barrier of his cell to-

“You used true love’s kiss,” she says softly.

He stumbles back a step, trying to get the tendrils of her power to disengage from him. They won’t.

“It was a joke,” he says, going so far as to try batting them away with his hand. It doesn’t do him any good. Even if he could break hers, that’s not all that’s between them. “It’s not like I-” The words die in his throat.

Lies are basic. Any agent of either side can spot the simplest ones, the outright lies. It’s when you start getting into degrees and selective truths that it gets complicated. But Grant’s not twisting his words here, he’s making a simple statement of what’s supposed to be _fact_. So why does he already taste the lie on his tongue?

She smiles sadly. “You nullified my oath, all right. I can’t kill you, not without winding up right back where I was.” Her hand touches her chest, directly over her heart. He’s not even sure she knows she’s doing it.

“I _don’t_ ,” he says and tastes iron. The lie is like blood in his teeth and he wants to spit it out. He looks around, searches for some way out of this. If he’d just taken the time to find a loophole - or if he’d bitten the bullet and killed her instead of having his fun… “Love is a _choice_ ,” he tries. It’s one of those things her side likes to say, to remind people that it takes effort.

“Yes, and you made one. And so did I, apparently,” she sighs. She’s slumped in the chair, looking smaller than ever and he wants to cross the barrier and wrap her up in his-

 _Whoa._ No. Okay? _No._ He does not want to _comfort_ a _Shieldmaiden_. Sure, he’s always liked her but-

“Son of a bitch,” he bites out. This cannot be happening.

“Yes, I rather think you are. But it seems you’re _my_ son of a bitch.” She’s standing again, looking almost regal the way she holds herself.

He could choose not to love her, fight this instinct before it takes him over. It’s doable. But watching her walk away, feeling his heart in his throat at the thought of her leaving him, he’s not sure he _wants_ to.

“You infected me,” he snarls.

She pauses on the stairs, a small smile coming over her. “You were the one who kissed me,” she says, “but yes, I think I did.” She looks almost proud.

It’s not just her aura reaching towards his. His is reaching for her, and as the distance grows greater, the two lines thin and merge until he can’t tell them apart anymore. His brilliant plan has bound them together soul-to-soul.

He sits heavily on the edge of the bed. He wanted to keep her around, play with her some more - and now he’ll never, ever be rid of her.

 


End file.
